The retail industry needs to be extremely efficient at identifying and ordering goods as well as at the display of the goods, posting the price of such goods and attracting the attention of its customers to the price of such goods especially when goods are marked down for promotional purposes. This applies both to inventory ordering and back ordering of goods, as well as the actual sales of goods from existing stock. Profit margins may be critically dependent on those factors, especially when retailers have to turn over or clear out stock.
A retailer orders goods or products, commonly known as SKU'S (stock keeping units), to be shipped from a manufacturer or distributor. The goods arrive at the retailer in bulk, together with invoices, bills of lading, or other transit documents that the retailer must check to confirm that the goods have indeed been delivered. The goods arrive—usually with price tags already attached. If the price tag is incorrect or missing, the retailers usually charge back to the suppliers certain fees to recoup the retailers' expenses related to required corrective action.
The label or price tag affixed to the goods bears indicia pertaining to the particular product and store, i.e. store name, bar code, SKU, model number, size, color, etc., and is displayed when the SKU is placed out for purchase. Those goods not sold are put on sale or marked down. This requires adjusting the original price and writing the adjusted price on the tag. This may occur repeatedly before the SKU is actually sold.
The retailers' marketing (pricing) strategy is vulnerable to access by competitors when the retailer has affixed the price tag to the product before it is shipped to a specific store or stores and while the goods are often in another's possession with the price exposed. The potential for unauthorized access to the retailer's pricing strategy for a substantial time might prevent the retailer from achieving maximum profitability.
In all the situations presented above, considerable time is lost “tagging” the goods for sale and manually adjusting the price. In most instances the price is revised/adjusted downward. This imposes additional cost on the retailer due to the manual labor necessary for the “tagging” process.
In response to these problems various electronic display systems were proposed, some of which address certain of the disadvantages discussed above. None of these systems, however, have achieved commercial success mostly due to overly complicated technological conceptualizations of electronic tagging systems involving radio receivers, complex logical systems and elaborate displays. As a result they failed to reduce manufacturing costs to the price per unit that would be commercially acceptable.
Some systems are designed or purport to combat the “shrinkage” problem at retail. This formidable task requires outsmarting the technologically sophisticated thief, who may be a customer or an employee of the retailer. Such systems are very expensive and so far have not been widely adopted by the industry.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,151,684 to Johnsen is concerned with the use of an electronic inventory label as a component of a security system. It also refers to its use for pricing, tracking, accounting and inventory control. The embodiment of the system, however, is directed towards achieving/performing its security functions and therefore requires components that make the system expensive. Indeed, it is only in connection with solving security problems that a system such as that described in Johnsen could justify its high cost. Although, in principle, Johnsen's application mentions pricing, tracking and accounting, it could never be cost-effectively produced to perform those functions alone. Johnsen's system makes economic sense only when the savings to be derived from elimination of theft are substantial. The complexity of Johnsen's system is inherent in his disclosure and teaches away from the development of a practical product a claim that Johnsen never achieves or even suggests.
The Johnsen system has been an economic failure. It has been defeated by its cost and complexity. It also fails to demonstrate that it could defend against a sufficiently clever thief. Thus, its inordinate expense is unlikely to attract users who believe it could accomplish its stated purpose. Once defeated, commercial introduction was apparently dropped and never improved for practical use as a price or marking tag.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,557,096 to Watanabe et al., assigned to Nippondenso Co., Ltd., provides an electronic tag for storing delivery information having a responder to transmit the delivery information in response to a query signal. The tag has a battery that is initiated only when torn, to extend battery shelf life. This complex system is described in 76 pages of drawings. However, the product conceived is a one-piece apparatus. This is clearly seen for example in column 61, line 55 where structures are described as forming “a permanent joint”, which is also described as possible by use of an adhesive agent. Its one-piece design places severe economic restriction/limitation on the entire manufacturing cost
U.S. Pat. No. 5,914,670 to Goodwin, assigned to NCR Corporation, describes an integral system for providing promotional messages on an electronic price label.
Further recent examples of integral electronic labels are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,337,836, entitled “Programmable electronic label”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,293,463 entitled “Electronic price label battery storage apparatus and replacement method”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,130,603, entitled “Low-powered RF-linked price display system”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,044,359 entitled “Method of minimizing power consumption within an electronic price label”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,635,915 entitled “Transmission system” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,340,968 entitled “Information storage medium with electronic and visual areas”. U.S. Pat. No. 4,139,149 to CreDeau et al. discloses a computer controller connected to a series of hard-wired display units. U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,880 to Gomersall et al. discloses a series of remote displays actuated by a computer showing pricing displays mounted on individual price tags. U.S. Pat. No. 4,727,368 to Larson et al. discloses a series of remote lock boxes controlled by a central computer through radio frequencies and/or telephone lines. U.S. Pat. No. 4,888,709 to Revesz et al. discloses what appears to be a radio transmitted series of signals directed to remote displays located on shelves to control the pricing on the remote display. U.S. Pat. No. 5,019,811 discloses a series of remote display units directed from a central system. The display units could not be used for individual price tags. U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,563 to Connor et al. discloses a display device useful for mounting cards or other items. U.S. Pat. No. 5,572,653 to DeTemDle et al. discloses a hard wired grid controlled from a central source, having a plurality of stations which then send infrared signals to display units or can be used to receive information from shopping carts and the like to indicate shoppers habits. U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,622 to Giordano, Jr. discloses a shelf-mounted display that receives radio frequency information by means of an antenna 24 and then displays the information on a display unit 22. This system is also intended for mounting on shelves.
It is therefore desirable to separate those components that may be permanently attached to a product from those possibly more expensive components that are reusable, and to do this in a manner that advances the functionality of the separate components.
It is therefore desirable to have the SKU's arrive at the retail establishment already having a less costly portion of a price tag mounted to the SKU or even concealed within the product, which when connected to a reusable component, may reduce substantially the time required for processing incoming goods and displaying them to the purchasing public. Alternatively, the retailer may elect to have the supplier provide the SKU with a price tag having a reusable or a throwaway component already in place, attached to the SKU. This, as mentioned above, significantly affects merchants' profits. A retailer's ability to handle incoming goods that already have price tags attached, coupled with the ability to immediately display the goods without any further effort and to electronically adjust the price of the goods from a remote location so that the consumer sees the successive price adjustments displayed on the goods, is highly advantageous for a retailer. The manual labor cost is significantly reduced and the time lag associated with re-pricing is completely eliminated. The system users enjoy further advantages from the ability of the electronic tag to assist in calling attention to price reduction, inventory control and security control. Certain marketing advantages will be enjoyed by users of the system due to the look, feel and potentially sounds and visuals alerts of the invention, which are designed to attract attention from consumers during the shopping experience.